How much energy do you use?

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If you have wandered through the basement hallways of Bogle Hall in the past week, you might have noticed a new display screen. This screen may not be able to tell you how much energy you use individually, but it can tell you how much energy Butler College is using. And some funny patterns show up if you look at Friday.Butler College energy use in kilowatt-hours on Friday Oct 7, 2011Notice any gaps? Perhaps between midnight and 4:00 a.m.? And then again between 4:00 and 8:00 a.m.? Apparently everyone in Butler went to sleep at midnight Thursday night .... or went to the Street. And came back around 4:00 a.m.The main purpose of the display, however, is not to tell us what we already know: that students head to the Street Thursday nights. It is to give us real-time electric, heating and cooling data, and long-term electricity patterns for Butler. A similar display screen is in Frick. And there are some funny energy conversions:On Friday, Butler used 3,161 kilowatt hours of energy. That equals:

  • 2,254 pounds of carbon
  • 90,312 laptop hours
  • 5,537 hamburgers

-5-8-7-6

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